"Rubber Face"

I'm not going to preface anymore of my stories with "I met him on Match.com", I meet them all on Match and if I don't I'll let you know.

David winked at me and I laughed out loud at his peculiar pictures. The name "Rubber Face" came to mind. He resembled Jim Carrey and was into making short comedy films. He sent me a link to one of his films on MySpace and after I watched it I was in hysterics, I think I may have even peed my pant a little which means he was very funny. His pictures left little to be desired but I thought he looked really cute in his films so I decided to meet him based on that.

He would text me in Pirate verbiage which was really strange. He would call me "Me Lady" and say "Arrrgghh" a lot. I thought what the hell I've met weirder. He worked as a waiter at a restaurant in Carlsbad and he was 36? I know red flag alert. We met up one night during Gay Pride weekend at a coffee shop in North Park. I brought my adopted 19 year old gay brother for protection. We had just come from a pride party and were both a little tipsy. We pulled up to the coffee shop and he was waiting outside. I noticed him right away and also noticed that he was completely balding yet had not gotten the memo: Young men who bald should shave their heads, immediately. He had a sort of bowl cut going around the rim of his head; it was awful to say the least. I had imagined this really funny guy, well the guy from the films, but what was left of him was an introverted loser...Perfect!

We sat down and had some iced chai teas. Gabe was falling asleep on the velvet couch bench and I was trying to get this guy to relax a bit. I immediately asked about the films, when they were made. He answered 10 years ago! Damn I missed the train with this guy. The problem was I had already invited him the next day to go to see Kathy Griffin with us at the Pride festival. I kept thinking to myself that I could somehow drop hints that he should cut his hair, if he only cut his hair I could be mildly attracted to him. So I said "I like your hair in those films, it looks really good shaved like that. You should shave it again." No response, he just kept pushing his pretend hair behind his ears. I knew that if I was going to get through the next day with him he would have to comply and cut that shit off. What purpose does it serve but only to attract attention to your premature balding? He looked like the offspring of Bozo the clown. I get that it must be hard to lose your hair but for god sake growing it from your ears down doesn't really count nor should it make you feel like more of a man. I was convinced that he'd be so smitten by me by the end of coffee that he'd do whatever I said. He walked me to the car and gave me a little kiss and said he was so excited about the next day. He had completely rearranged his work schedule to be able to go to this festival with me.

I woke up the next day and was completely hung over. I'd had a long weekend celebrating gay pride and let me tell you those "Gays" know how to party. I considered faking my own "coming out" event because I was so in the spirit and surrounded by enough booze and lesbians to make this happen successfully. Instead though my straight instincts took over and I met David. I called him mid-day and he didn't pick up. The thought went through my head as I was waiting through his voicemail to leave a message that he must be getting a haircut and can't answer the phone! As the beep of the voicemail started I actually said in as cute a voice as I could muster hung-over, "Hi David it's Heather, just calling to see what time you're coming down. You must be getting your haircut right now so call me back! Bye." Now I was just lying to myself which is pretty sad and probably insulting this guy at the same time. He called back and didn't say a word about the haircut so I thought I probably shouldn't push my luck, maybe he wanted to surprise me. I like surprises.

I went to Gabe's to wait for him to arrive so we could all go over to the event together. Again I had my bodyguard just in case the hair didn't get a cut. Gabe did a good job dealing with my cranky ass and reassuring me that, of course he would cut his hair, he totally got the message. I was whining about how tired I was and how I wished David wasn't coming over when he knocked on the door. I was screaming at Gabe "Did he cut it off, did he, did he??" He just said "No" very quietly and opened the door with a "Hi David!" I didn't even get off the couch to greet him. I just kept watching T.V. and complaining about being "Sooooo tired". I think he was nervous so he went to the bathroom. We all piled in Gabe's car and drove over to the festival. There was of course no parking so we literally drove around for an hour. At this point I was so miserable that I just kept chain smoking and hot boxing David in the back seat. We finally resorted to parking in some handicap parking spot that was in front of someone's house. Thank God Gabe's $1000.00 corolla came with a handicap plaque. Poor handicap person probably went to the store for a minute and came back to realize that he'd have to walk blocks to park his car. I'm definitely going to hell for that one.

We arrived at the festival around 6pm and it was so packed. The gays were out in full force to see their girl Kathy. Gabe of course was so excited to see her and wanted to get as close to the front as possible. The stage was at the bottom of this huge grass hill and we got seating at the very bottom left of the stage. David was dressed in board shorts and some shirt that looked like it was from 1994. He had these huge black bug eye chick glasses on and sandals. I was thoroughly turned off but felt bad I had drug him with me to this event. I tried to make small talk which was hard because we were starting to get walled in by all the gays trying to get front seating. Some obnoxious transvestite was on stage attempting to sing and pump the crowd. My head was throbbing and Gabe tried to leave to go get something to eat. I gave him the death glare and then the puppy eyes. He stayed.

Jenny showed up and gave me this look of "Why?" and I just shook my head "Don't ask". Gabe and Jenny talked shit about me while I tried to get out of this guy his story. He kept saying that he was in a transitional period that something had happened. Finally with enough prying he admitted that he had had 4 DUI's, 3 this year alone! I know my jaw was dropped and I stupidly asked him if he was an alcoholic. I literally put my head in my hands and asked myself how the hell I find these losers. Let's just say that the rest of Kathy was ruined by uncomfortable body language. I was able to tell Gabe in between drunken gays yelling over our heads. I was starting to feel really closterphobic. The crowd had grown to around 1000 gays and some were really scary.

We went back to Gabe's and on the way David asked if he could take me home. I started to feel really bad about what a shitty day I gave this guy so I said yes. We approached his beat up Toyota truck when he said non-chalantely "I have to use a breathalyzer to start my car, hope you don't mind." All I could muster up in my state of shock was "Right." Really at this point what could I say? It's not like he's asking to drive me home drunk. I won't lie; there is always a part of me that acts on curiosity rather than common sense. I do things that normal people wouldn't do because I vow to see things through, for better or worse. I'm very dedicated.

I'll just say this: a breathalyzer in your car is a real bitch of a thing to have. I'm so glad I’m not a drunk. I immediately thought why the hell would this guy ask me into his car when he had a clear "out" in that situation. I guess he really liked being treated like shit. I think what struck me as the strangest was the force in which this guy had to blow in the thing in order to make the car start. He had to do it multiple times which is why it's a good thing he isn't a smoker. I might have had cardiac arrest if I had attempted it. The real kicker is that the damn machine beeps loudly every 2 or so minutes to check if you've suddenly become drunk. Our ten minute trip was filled with a lot of blowing. I didn't want him to know where I lived so I had him park a block away from my house and I actually pretended to go up to someone's house while he drove away. I walked home wondering how and why I meet these men in order to fulfill my dream of love and at which point do I cross the line from curiosity to idiocy.

"Asian Nation"

This isn't meant to be racist. It's the pure fact that you should stick with your gut when it comes to attraction. I met Anthony on Match.com, and yes he was "Asian". His pictures were deceiving to say the least. I mean he didn't look very ethnic. We talked a few nights for over an hour and it was pretty good. He seemed a bit immature for my liking and I don't have Asian as one of my preferences online. I always fall for the "Carpe Diem" shit, I'm a hopeless romantic in the worst of ways. We were talking late one night and he seemed so charming via phone conversation. I was buying his lines of bull. He asked if he could come over to give me a kiss. This is at midnight. I think to myself "What the hell", how romantic this could turn out to be. So I put my face on real quick and change my clothes and he calls me. I'm talking to him outside my house as he's driving to meet me. I tried to envision him as just not that "Asian". I thought to myself that maybe his personality would cancel out the truth that I'm just not attracted to the Asian race. He's coming up the hill and turning onto my street and we are still on the phone as he's parking across the street from where I'm standing. The windows are tinted, of course, so I can't get a good look.

He steps out of the car and immediately I am disappointed, he looks like what I didn't want to believe he would look like. I'm stuck, I'm literally searching my mind for a way to get out of this. We meet, we give a hug and then we get into his car to "talk". Originally I had said we could walk to the park by my house but decided against it for lack of interest. We settle in his car and it's pretty uncomfortable. He says "Do I look like what you thought I would?" Of course he had to drop that bomb. What could I do? I couldn't say what was running through my head, I couldn't say: "Unfortunately Anthony I was trying to give Asian a try but now that you're in front of me I have no attraction at all!" So I said yes.

He leans over and starts kissing me and I think to myself, "Let's just get this over with so I can add you to the list of horrible train wreck dates I've admitted myself to". He kissed liked an idiot and this is beginning to become a pattern with men today. What the hell happened to all the good kissers? When did kissing become so sloppy? You would think that by 30 we would all know the do's and don't of kissing. I mean this is the most elementary part of making out. He kept asking me if we could take a walk or a drive and I kept saying no. He looked at me with longing eyes and was complimenting me. Of course he had to tell me that he haden't had sex in over year (yes I could tell) and that I had no idea how bad he wanted me. I knew I had to wrap this slobber session up before it got even messier so I just said "Ok times up, I'm going back home." He was all pathetic and begging me for 5 more minutes. I just said noooo, I think this was plenty time for a first meeting. I tried to open the door and it was locked! I thought to myself "Oh shit". I hadn't planned on this, but just as my heart rushed to my throat and panic began to sink in he unlocked the door. He asked if he could call me when he got home as I was stepping out of the car. I just said, "Um...I might be sleeping, bye."

I walked across the street and didn't look back , actually I might have been running. I rolled my eyes, let out a big sigh and thought "What the hell is wrong with me!" He called within minutes of me lying down in bed and I ignored the call. He then text just in case I had not intentionally missed the call. I ignored again. It read "Hey Heather!" like I could hear him through the phone or something. He got the point and didn't call again. I've decided that while yes "Asian" food is one of my favorite cuisines, "Asian" men did not stir my sexual appetite. Poor guy, he had no idea what probably hit him. He hasn't been back on Match.com since.

Love Lost, Found and Lost Again...

We all want to find love and it’s inevitable really. How do we find what we are looking for? I’ve looked across the Atlantic to find love and I really thought I had found it. How naïve I can be when I have full range of my hopeless romantic heart. All I wanted was the truth, the man that would bring me a warm heart once again. The first time around was young and misguided. I fell into a trap of dreams, the dream we are fed from an early age. We are shone movies and we are pumped full of hope for this one great love. We grow older and we have our first taste of desperate love, the love that you give up all of yourself to become consumed completely. It becomes apparent that we must leave that false hope and move into the reality of love failed. Admitting this is hardest and we begin to feel the pull of adulthood tugging at our skirt hem. We admit defeat and call it a growing experience to fuel our recovery from the worst pain of all: real heart break. Your heart breaks once and it’s likened to giving birth; you forget the pain after awhile and attempt it again. This time though we think is going to be different but it’s not. We find ourselves attracted to the same sort of men but in different skins. Unfortunately we can’t sense the similarities because lust and hope fog up the mirror of reflection. It isn’t until our heart has already attached itself firmly to the invisible wall of love that we realize we’ve picked the same person all over again. Now we are faced with the denial and the sense of hopelessness. We desperately try to find the characteristics that diversify this man from the one before. Before long we are suffering and it is inevitable, the end is near. The cycle of failed love attempts has begun its course. The question is how do we screen properly? How do we draw ourselves to the type of man that we truly see ourselves with? How do we end this cycle and learn to find love at all, most of all healthily?
I used to be the girl, and maybe all of us were before heart break, which didn’t need a man, who glowed with self confidence. I never let him get too close, too comfortable. I always found his flaws quickly and then I was able to turn away and not look back. All I ever do these days is walk backwards, run even, in the wrong direction. Gravity pulls me towards the man who left me once again. I cannot wrap my brain around the truth that he just doesn’t want me. In a sense I do have self esteem because I think to myself “How could he not see how amazing a girl I am?” I am baffled by the indifference men have to women and to the relationship of commitment. It’s as if men in their 30’s don’t feel the need to settle down. I thought that when I got older men would finally be in a state of maturity and that by some miracle would grow sensitivity to women’s hearts. I guess we expect that in our 20’s guys are going to be chasing and leaving, that indiscretion is almost expected but when you find out that our 30’s are the same a depression of realization sets in. My question is this: Do men not value commitment? Would they really rather play silly games than just grow up and be honest? In the end are they not capable of faithfulness with a woman?
Dating is very emotionally draining and mentally tiring. I suppose this is my first real experience with it. I got married at 21 and stayed married until I was almost 27. The bulk of my 20’s were spent playing house and trying desperately to stay afloat in a failing marriage. I had no idea nor would any 21 year old how to be or what it meant to be a wife. When we are 21 we don’t even fully understand who and what we are. High School romances are short lived and seldom extend after graduation. Nothing will prepare you for marriage just as nothing will prepare you for the heart break of divorce. Year 28 was spent recklessly and with all abandonment of my morals. Years 28 and 29 were filled with solace, a time to be celibate and heal from all of my war wounds. Now at 30 I am dating and finding this the most difficult challenge I may have faced in the area of men. I joined Match.com at a friend’s insistence and have been on a roller coaster of dating ever since.
Dating is really an art. It is the ultimate power struggle between a man and a woman. In this 21st century our roles as Man and Woman are becoming less and less defined. The lines have been crossed and my generation is full of uncertainties when it comes to us ending up together. It’s as if we have no clear definition of who does what and how if at all we are to approach commitment together. We have lost the age of innocence, a time where a man knew he needed to act different in front of a lady. When my parents were at this age they had clear defined roles. A man did provide, a man did open the car door, he did pay for dinner, and he did lead the direction of the relationship. We are lacking so much in my generation. Somewhere along the line we became such selfish individuals. Yes we have so many more opportunities than our parents did and we have the freedom and the equality to do more, but to gain we had to lose. Fundamentally we have these roles ingrained in our DNA but circumstances in our aging society have trumped these moral fibers. We are so consumed with the mentality of “More” that we work harder, we play less and ultimately we forget to build relationships, to take the time to create a meaningful commitment with someone you love.
Since the completion of my marriage I have found two men in which I invested my heart. They both were long distance Match.com applicants. The first was a complete fantasy, something I had always dreamed about but never thought I could have. I found quickly that with the Internet you can have whatever you want but it does come at a cost. I’ve always wanted to be in love with a man from England. It comes from visiting there when I was 19 and falling for a musician in Liverpool that I had a one night kiss affair with. I was hooked, I loved that country and I felt alive when I was there. I found Dean on Match.com. He had lived in my home town for a year and desperately wanted to come back to live. His profile actually read: “I want to live in San Diego and have babies and raise them near the beach.” I was hooked and so we formed a cyber fantasy together. Both of us wanted what the other had. We spoke every day and money seemed no object for my hearts worth. It ended badly in a hotel room by the beach in San Diego. I flew him out here with the promise of repayment because my heart was so lonely for what his words painted in my mind. He promised me the world, I was naïve. I thought that fate would take care of me, that the universe wanted me to have what I deserved after my heart had been thoroughly beaten by my divorce. I left him in the hotel room after only three of our 6 planned days. The silence, the panic on his face, the realization of who he really was hit my gut like a ton of bricks all at once. My heart was yet again broken by a man that simply couldn’t commit to me, who had the defense of shutting himself off and who in the end couldn’t be who he so desperately wanted to be.
It was my husband but only in a different vessel. I was dumb founded; I couldn’t believe that I had allowed another man to once again determine my worth, to tear my heart until it bled. I cried for two weeks, I mourned my stupidity; I reconstructed the cold metal wall that stands before my heart.

"The Infamous El Guapo"

We started emailing on Match.com a few times. He's dating headline was "The Infamous El Guapo", should have known. We then moved to the phone where we had two lengthy conversations in which he would not let me get off the phone. He's a Math teacher who is finishing his PhD, very analytical. But he's pretty funny, tries too hard sometimes, and quotes Napoleon Dynamite. Why is it that all straight men quote that movie? It's such a turn off. Seriously I've talked to a handful of guys on the phone and almost everyone pulls out a line from that movie, lame.

We decide to have dinner and set the date for a Thursday night. I think to myself that he seems pretty harmless so I decide to let him pick me up (a first). His profile goes on about how he's a romantic guy, flowers, cards, pulling out the chair. On the phone he is annoyingly inquisitive, wanting to know too much about me, asking inappropriate sexual questions. Why do guys do this? Instead of seeing what we care about in life, what maybe our background is, they'd prefer to know what our favorite sexual position is. I think these men are definitely lacking some brain cells somewhere. But being me I’ve decided to give everyone a fair shot because who knows what someone is like in person.

He is a half hour late. I think to myself that maybe he's going to flake on me. I knew he had a meeting he would be into until 6 but for god sake it was already 8pm. Finally he calls and apologizes profusely so I decide to give him a chance, big mistake.

He picks me up and I’m wearing heels and the first thing I notice is that he is way shorter than his profile said. This seems to be a problem lately. I went out with this guy that said he was 5'6 and he was actually like 5'3. I went to give him a hug goodbye and our eyes were the same level. Ekk, it was terrible because I was in flats!

He starts in with the jokes, there are no nice compliments, no "wow you look great" and I did. Good hair night for me. It always happens like that. We drive over to Hillcrest because he wants to take me to Amarin Thai. We can't find a park so he ends up parking like 6 blocks from the restaurant. All I can think is how I'm going to have to look down on him while we are walking because he's so short. Dinner is pretty uneventful. He did pull out my chair and tried to push me back in but that didn't work out too smoothly. How are you supposed to do that trick anyways? Maybe if I weighed what Gladys does he'd be able to push me in while I lift my feet off the ground. I ended up just half squatting while he attempted to get me securely close to the table. He orders the duck. I felt like a child, I've never fucking had duck. It was always chicken or beef growing up. My parents would have shot me if I ever tried to order the duck.

He's full of dumb jokes and he won't stop babbling about his stupid PhD program and all the research he needs to do in order to...whatever I actually tuned out. I'm looking across the table at him while he's babbling and I’m sizing him up, wondering if I could actually make out with that face. His bottom lip protruded out a little too much but I think it's better than no lips. I'm actually having this conversation in my head and wondering if I should go somewhere after dinner with him. It takes a moment of consideration and I think what the hell I have nothing else to do.

Over dinner he made some lame comments about my boobs and that he couldn't stop looking at them. I swear my boobs get more action than I've ever seen. Sometimes I actually get jealous of them and silently curse them because they are drawing attention away from me. We walk 90 miles back to his car and I start to feel a little gas in my stomach. I think: Great I didn't know that Thai gave me
Gas. So shortie and I make it back to his car and we decide to go to Balboa Park to walk around.

We sit in front of the fountain and begin a conversation that goes south quickly. He asks me about porn and what I think of it. I told him that I think it's gross and he says with much confusion "Wow how did you get this far in life hating porn. How does this affect you in relationships?" Well I didn't know my opinion was so life altering. I ended up trying to debate the subject and then found I was tired and this guy is a smuck so I changed the subject. We start to walk down by the museums and he says he needs to use the restroom. Now I know the restrooms at the park aren’t open at night so I tell him this. He's franticly pulling on doors and then we pass a courtyard and he says he'll be right back. I'm thinking at this point, seriously am I standing in the dark park without my purse (it's in the car) and this jackass has just left me to go find a bush somewhere to pee in. He is gone for over 10 minutes and I receive images of him squatting and shitting somewhere in the woods.

We go back to the car and all I can think is that he probably has shit on his hands. We are parked in front of the Natural History Museum and they are receiving a shipment. I turn to grab my seatbelt and when I turn around his lips are smashed up against my face. My immediate thought is that this may not be too bad. We kiss for a little bit and right when it's polite to pull away he starts to breathe heavily and his hands are on my tits, grabbing and pulling. I'm kind of smashed up against the side of the door when he does the unthinkable, he attempts to climb into my seat and get on top of me.

First of all we are in a civic, and second we are not in a tinted car in an abandoned parking lot. I have a scarf around my neck and my hair is down and he's not the smallest guy. In a matter of seconds he's trying to climb on top of me and his foot gets caught on the stick shift. He leans on my scarf and it begins to choke me while his hand is ripping my hair out of the back of my head. It's all too sudden and I have no idea how I got in this predicament. All I can say is "Ow my hair, your choking me!" Then I say "What are we 17, I'm not going to have sex with you in your car" He says "Who says we are going to have sex, I don't carry condoms with me!" I push him back and say I don't think we should do this.

He begins to drive me home and I notice his pants are unzipped. He says "I'm so horny now" I say "Wow that's nice to say" in which he answers: "Don't worry I'll finish this at home."

Perfect Ending to my shitty dating life...

Where it all started...

It all started with a divorce. I thought I had a love that was different, that was special in some fairytale way. I thought I was exempt from all the normality of life. I was 21 when I tied the knot and then 26 when the thread unraveled. The world I knew was no longer and I was forced to find myself all over again. Married, Divorced and Bankrupt before thirty. I had never had sex with anyone else besides my husband. It had nothing to do with religion but all to do with my pride, the protection of my femininity, my innocence. I wasn't going to let anyone take away the one thing I could protect, the last piece of my innocence. I was waiting for love.

Divorce bled me dry. Literally I had a gaping hole in my heart that continued to bleed long after the wound had healed. I became liberated, angry, depressed, desperate and sexual. I used Men to fill a void, a space that had never before been present. I felt like I had power finally, like I had a special entitlement to hurt the very gender that hurt me. The truth was that I was hurting and in turn hurting others. I'm sure in the end I hurt myself more and that I really just confused a bunch of men with my one-night stands. This lasted exactly a year until I found that wine and sex with strangers wasn't healing my wounds but only deepening them.

I had a year and a half of solitude and I never once wanted a man. I was content finally, I was healing from the inside and coming to terms with what my divorce and marriage really meant in my life. I forgave my husband because I no longer possessed any feelings towards him good or bad. It was as if one day I woke up and was completely numb to this man that I had been so needy for, so desperate for, the man that took my innocence, my heart and ripped it to shreds. I began to appreciate what I went through. I realized that I was a whole person again, that I was so much more than I allowed myself to be while married. I was back and my faith in love was restored. Hope surrounded me and I began to believe that I could find love again, that it was my destiny. Once a hopeless romantic, always a hopeless romantic.